REDLANDS – Soft melodies, dark dramatic tunes and banging were all heard at Monday evening’s University of Redlands faculty recital, giving the audience a night full of surprises and laughter.

The recital, in the university’s Frederick Loewe Performance Hall, featured faculty members of the School of Music.

Andrew Glendening, dean of the School of Music, played the trombone in about every way you could play the instrument throughout the concert.

I could tell that pianist Lukas Swidzinski felt every note he played.

David Scott accompanied with his trumpet along with Stewart Undem on the bass trombone.

The first piece was “Sonata in B Flat” by 18th-century composer Alessandro Besozzi.

Besozzi’s family was made up of musicians. His father taught him the oboe and then moved to the court of Carlo Emanuele III in Turin, in service to the duke until he died.

Besozzi’s “Sonata in B Flat” was originally written for oboe and was transcribed for trombone by Branimar Slokar with a keyboard realization by Hannes Meyer.

Despite a small mistake in the beginning, the rest of the piece – and the concert – ran smoothly. However, it did take me back to my days as a University of Redlands piano performance major when my piano professor told me never to show I made a mistake, even if I did make one.

The sonata was a light, airy piece, full of simplicity.

Later it became a little more mysterious and started off the uncommon notes of the evening. The dynamics were amazing, and the piece was finished off slowly and full of peace.

Also on the concert was “Divertimento for Trumpet, Trombone, and Piano,” written in 1946 by Boris Blacher, who lived from 1903 to 1975.

Blacher grew up in Nazi Germany and worked as a copyist and arranger of commercial music before teaching at Dresden Conservatory.

His music was labeled “un-German” by the Nazis, and he was forced to resign. Later on he became a professor and experimented with music elements such as jazz, serialism and electronic music.

The piece is a neo-classic jazz work that uses different combinations of the three instruments.

At that point the really random music started up. The trumpet was fast-paced and all over the scales, yet very juicy with how it all came together.

“Arrows of Time,” written in 1997 by Richard Peaslee, is a piece in three movements that was written for a full orchestra as well.

Peaslee calls the piece virtuosic and difficult, and it took him a lot of work to create it.

Glendening and Swidzinski gave a very animated and dramatic performance.

It was a dark, heavy piece with a dark city feel to it.

“Pastorale for Tenor Trombone, Bass Trombone and Piano,” by Eric Ewazen (born in 1954), was originally written for flute, horn and piano.

This was the most flowing, graceful piece of the night. The rolling chords were my favorite.

Next came “Five Pieces Op. 198,” written in two days in Palm Springs in 1967 by Ernst Krenek.

This piece was a crowd favorite, and one of the strangest I have ever heard. They banged on the piano, making a harsh sound, and used the trombone to play the piano, blowing into the piano and gliding the trombone across the piano strings. This one got the audience roaring of laughter.

“Carnival of Venice” finished the night off as a show-off piece for the trombone.

The piece was written by Jaroslav Cimera who lived from 1885 to 1972.

It was a big, fancy show-off piece that once again used familiar tunes.

Overall, it was a night to expand the horizons of people interested in instrumental music.